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Agribusiness can reduce poverty and feed the world, say contributors to Making It magazine

VIENNA, 17 June 2011 – Agribusiness is the key to some of the great challenges of our time, according to authors writing in the latest issue of the magazine Making It: Industry for Development, published by UNIDO.

Kanayo Nwanze, president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development, writes that agribusiness is the key to reducing the poverty of the world’s small farmers and feeding the world’s growing population. But, only if smallholder farmers can participate in the profitable marketplaces that are evolving.

Can agribusiness, as it has developed in recent decades, continue in a world increasingly concerned about carbon emissions, water scarcity and the threat to biodiversity? Helmy Abouleish, managing director of Egypt’s SEKEM Group, and Indian eco-activist, Vandana Shiva, think the answer is organic agricultural inputs.

Paul Bulcke, CEO of the world's largest food and drink company, explains how Nestlé is taking action all along the length of its supply chain, and Guillermo Garcia, from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, reveals how value-added agro-products can be a viable alternative to coca in Colombia.

There are also articles on the prospects for sustainable palm oil production, and on the rebound effect from energy efficiency. The latest issue also has a country feature on Ethiopia, which includes an exclusive article by the acclaimed author Peter Gill, the first Western journalist to cover the famine that devastated the country in the early 1980s, who has since returned to record the country’s remarkable recovery.

The Making It website – www.makingitmagazine.net– contains not only all the content of the print versions but other original articles and features, as well.